KARLOVASSI BAY – Poetry by Yannis Ritsos

KARLOVASSI BAY

Old houses inhabited by the boos of the night boats. By lampshades hang small wooden ships built with care from the hands of sailors convicted. For years and years now they are locked. Rust, salt, moths, termites have corroded doors, windows, floors, stairs, locks, bars. Here once children played with a dog as big as a lion. Naked bodies rolled on Persian carpets. Therefore, the nights down there at the bottom echoes the relentless sea, and the old captain shaking in the air a hurricane lamp, shouting one by one their names: Artemis, Electra, Helen, Patroclus, Achilles, Orestes; then climbs on board, dry-docked, turn off the light and go to bed under the same blanket soaked with Odysseus.

(Ghiannis Ritsos)

http://www.amazon.com/Yannis-Ritsos-ndash-Poems/dp/1926763076